About Us
What We Do
The Program on Strategic Partnerships and Innovation will pursue its mission through data collection different cross-sector partnerships; their characteristics, successes and failures. The Program employs a combination of focus groups, site visits to promising partnerships around the world, and qualitative interviews to inform new thinking based on original research. By utilizing the experience of on-the-ground experts from private, public, and non-profit organizations who have worked in different collaborative settings, as well as relying on complimentary academic research, the Program will bring forth a macro perspective on the effectiveness of strategic, cross-sector partnerships. The Program will observe regional partnerships, where stakeholders must work together to solve the multitude of problems facing a local population, as well as partnerships formed to address global issues such as climate change or poverty. This program contributes to the thinking and practice that can improve the quality and impact of strategic partnerships. The upcoming book, Strategic Public Private Partnerships: Innovation and Development, will capture the findings from the Program’s initial years of research.
Call for Action
Throughout ages of specialization as the engine of growth, society has grown comfortable with segmentation. People and industries, nations and municipalities, operate in silos. While many can see the necessity for partnerships toward the betterment of global society, the actual implementation of such collaborative endeavors remains difficult. In economically challenging times, mutual benefit through partnerships might not readily appear, as the need for self preservation might cause institutions to withdraw and focus internally. And yet, other institutions might see partnerships as more essential to their survival when facing financial insecurity.
The challenges of contemporary times require significant resources that have been traditionally compartmentalized. The means by which these resources are harnessed and combined are not always clear and usually not regularized or institutionalized. Subsequently, the creation and vitality of ongoing vehicles for aligning human, monetary, physical, and intellectual capital toward societal improvements become increasingly necessary. The rise of new social and developmental challenges, critically heightened by the global financial downturn, further contributes to the urgency of finding new and innovative solutions by creating strategic partnerships within and among the public, private, and non-profit sectors.
Future Steps
In the next few years the program will continue to research examples of strategic partnerships that pursue social change in municipalities and regions around the United States and world, as well as partnerships that pursue thematic goals. Over time, the program will produce papers and convene strategic meetings on these efforts.